Improving the Lives of Young Children

Vivian L. Gadsden is the William T. Carter Professor of Child Development and Education, professor of Africana Studies, and director of the National Center on Fathers and Families at the University of Pennsylvania. In spring 2016, she became president of the American Educational Research Association. Gadsden’s research and scholarly interests focus on learning and literacy among children and families across the life-course, from early childhood through the aging process, who are at the greatest risk for academic and social vulnerability by virtue of race, gender, ethnicity, poverty, and immigrant status. Her conceptual framework, family cultures, has been used widely to examine the interconnectedness among families’ political, cultural, and social histories and racialized identities. Her current, collaborative projects include studies of Head Start children’s learning, family engagement, and parent involvement; young fathers in urban settings; health and educational disparities within low-income communities; effects of incarceration; and intergenerational learning within African-American and Latino families.

Gadsden has served as lead investigator on grants from the Annie E. Casey, Ford, Mott, and Spencer foundations; the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and National Institutes of Health; and the U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice. She also has served or serves on foundation and congressionally mandated review committees. Gadsden has published numerous journal articles, book chapters, texts, and reports, including book-length volumes on literacy and African American youth; re-entry of incarcerated parents in the lives of children, families, and communities; and risk, equity, and schooling as well as a forthcoming book volume on children of incarcerated parents.